Groundhog Day was Saturday. But Steven Brault can relate to Bill Murray’s iconic Phil Connors character every time he reports to Bradenton, Fla., in the spring.

If the Pittsburgh Pirates are preparing for a season, it must mean Brault is competing for a spot at the back end of their starting rotation.

“It’s kind of normal for me at this point,” the left-hander said. “I haven’t been in a spring camp yet where I haven’t been in competition, so I don’t really know what it feels like not do that, to be honest.”

Brault, in 2016, was hoping to make the majors for the first time. After he did that in July and made seven starts, the following spring he was competing with his buddy, Trevor Williams, for a spot in the 2017 rotation. Last season, again, Brault was competing for the No. 5 starter’s job.

Guess what? It’s 2019, and Brault is doing it again. This time, Williams is coming off one of the majors’ best second halves for a starting pitcher. So Brault’s competition to slot in behind Jameson Taillon, Chris Archer, Williams and Joe Musgrove is veteran Jordan Lyles and highly regarded prospect Nick Kingham.

“I think competition, in general, is always good for you,” Brault said. “I’ve always thought if I ever became a college coach, I would do it like wrestling: ‘We’re going to have (an intrasquad) game Thursday and grade you on your play. If you (stink), you’re not going to play Friday.’ ”

Brault chuckled. Asked if he pitched that idea to manager Clint Hurdle, the 26-year-old conceded the veteran manager probably would shoot it down. But as he tries to earn a job in 2019, Brault has changed his approach in a couple of different ways.

First, his mindset: “The mentality that I had before and always had was I want to make it a tough decision for them. Now, the mentality is I want to make it an easy decision for them.”

Brault largely has established himself as a major leaguer, one who virtually is assured of a spot as a reliever if he is not named part of the rotation. He also entered the offseason riding high after four strong appearances the final week of the regular season: 5 1/3 innings, no runs, three hits, a walk and six strikeouts. That helped ease the sting of a season in which he struggled so much in July that he spent 2 ½ weeks in Triple-A.

It was that stretch that compelled Brault to make a second significant change to his approach, this one physical. Eschewing conventional wisdom, Brault did not take time off from throwing once the season ended.

“After not throwing for a month or month and a half, when you throw again, you feel like a jagaloon for a while,” Brault said. “This year, I wanted to work on stuff because my command was shoddy last year, so I wanted to make sure I actually worked through the offseason to get rid of that.”

Other than an undisclosed tweak to his delivery Brault said will be “visually evident,” the emphasis of his offseason was making his delivery as repeatable as possible.

Funny, because that’s the feeling Brault gets every spring. It repeats: compete for that fifth starter spot.

“I’ve always heard that spring training is for getting ready (for the upcoming season),” Brault said. “I have never experienced that that (because) spring training is for winning a spot, isn’t it? Hopefully we eventually get (past) that.”

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Chris Adamski is a Tribune-Review staff writer. You can contact Chris at cadamski@tribweb.com or via Twitter @C_AdamskiTrib.

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